Zotac are back again and this time it's with the GeForce 8800 GT. This isn't just any boring GeForce 8800 GT though, as we have the AMP! Edition with us this time around. The good news is that the GeForce 8800 GT stock seems to be picking up a bit more so hopefully you won't have too much trouble getting such a graphics card. The particularly good thing about the AMP! Edition is that it's more than just an overclocked card, and that it has some extra features to stand out in the crowd. We won't go into too much detail just yet though, let's first move onto the packaging side of things before moving onto a closer look at the card itself to see what Zotac have done different. - TweakTown

Zotac GeForce 8800 GT 512MB AMP! Version Review

The front of the box gives us a bucket load of information. As far as the main information goes we can see both the brand across the top and the model across the bottom of the box. We can also see just above the model that the particular card is the AMP! Edition as we mentioned. The right of the box gives us the main features of the card like the inclusion of 512MB of GDDR3 memory, 256-bit memory Interface, PCI Express 2.0, overclocked and more. Turning the box over we have some more features of the card mentioned, some information about the technology implemented into the core along with a bit of a blurb on the card.

Moving onto the actual card it's no surprise that the heatsink takes up the whole front of the card. We can see again the model, brand and the fact that this is an AMP! Edition, but the biggest thing worth mentioning is the bigger fan. The bigger fan should show up more and more as it seems to be an official change from NVIDIA. What this should help us do is drop the temperature a little bit and also the noise levels. Hidden away at the back of the card is a single PCI Express power connector that we have seen on all GeForce 8800 GT cards, so it comes as no surprise as well as an SLI connector for multi-GPU operation.

With the card carrying the AMP! naming scheme it is of course overclocked out of the box. The standard GeForce 8800 GT comes in at 600MHz on the core, 1500MHz shader clock and 1800MHz effective on the memory. Zotac have gotten pretty serious with the clocks on their GeForce 8800 GT with the core coming in at 700MHz, shader carrying a clock of 1700MHz and the memory coming in at a healthy 2000MHz effective. Zotac have always given us a fairly decent product. While most of the time we see the reference design from them, when we get an AMP! Edition in our hands it's all smiles.

Priced at just over $350 it's a bit pricey, but it's fast, very fast considering the price and the new cooler design being nothing short of fantastic. We're still disappointed that Zotad haven't included a game in the package but the inclusion of the big overclock and the DVI to HDMI connector that is capable of transferring audio makes the package on a whole very good, and one of the better GeForce 8800 GT ones we've seen thus far. The best news of it all now is that the Zotac cards are available locally. We knew it was only a matter of time till someone picked up the distribution which is exactly what is happening.

With cards like the GeForce 8800 GT AMP! Edition it's clear that Zotac are going to do well. It will be nice to see what happens with the GeForce 8800 GTS and if we get an AMP! Edition of that along with the new D9 video cards due out in February of next year. This is one of the best GeForce 8800 GT cards we have seen to date. Performance, cooling, price and bundle are all great, and has a lot going for it and well positioned against the competition.